


Adventures In Vigilanting

by Chosenfire



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Case Fic, Dancing, Developing Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 02:56:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/844504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chosenfire/pseuds/Chosenfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity can’t help looking, she never thought Oliver would look back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adventures In Vigilanting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jena Bartley (jenab)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenab/gifts).



> I hope you like this! I was excited to get your assignment (love the pairings!) and tried to fit in a few of your likes in this.
> 
> Thank you to htbthomas for betaing this for me, and to witchyemerald for giving me some feedback. You both are amazing and I wouldn't have been able to finish this without you <3

“You’re doing great.” Oliver’s voice was soft in her ear and his arm was snug around her waist as he led her across the dance floor. Felicity leaned on him, trying to keep her breathing even and her feet off his toes. She wasn’t a dancer, had never really had a need outside of high school functions to do anything more than sway back and forth. She skipped the annual Queen Industries ball last year because the servers had crashed and Walter had trusted her to get things back up and running before Monday.

“If I step on your toes, I’m sorry,” she confessed as he twirled her again and really, people enjoyed this? She tried to follow his lead, admitting, “Dancing isn’t really my thing. It’s really the opposite of my thing.”

His grip on her waist tightened and she looked up to see the smile on his face “It’s not really my thing anymore, either.” 

“No, I don’t think it would be. Unless there were some fancy parties on the island.” He laughed and she felt herself relax just a little, reassured that she wasn’t screwing everything up. 

His eyes moved beyond her and she felt his grip change, his body tensing. “Okay, we have a window.” Felicity stepped away from him holding close to his arm so she didn’t lose him as they moved through the other partygoers, Starling City’s wealthy in all their best finery trying to pretend the past few months hadn’t happened as they raised money for another cause they didn’t really care about. 

Oliver was here because this particular wealthy businessman throwing the party was one of the people on Oliver’s list. Thomas Newman, like many on the list, was a part of Starling City’s most well off families. After a bit of digging, Felicity had discovered that like the others, Newman had been stealing from the people in the city for his own profit. He was smart though, he hid his business dealings well and they hadn’t been able to figure out just how much money he’d siphoned from his own business and where he’d hidden it. 

Which was why Felicity was here tonight.

Oliver watched as the guards moved frantically towards the front of the house; Diggle obviously had gotten their attention to give them the time they needed. Oliver’s hand was warm on the bare skin of Felicity’s back and she wished the blue dress he’d presented her with was cut a little higher, because whoa. 

She slipped into Newman’s home office, Oliver close behind, and immediately went for the sleek computer on the desk. When she hadn’t been able to get anything from Newman’s work computer, she’d guessed he probably kept his more private files on his home computer.

She booted it up and slipped her favorite flash drive out of the oversized bag that matched her shoes. It made breaking into secure networks easier and faster, all she had to do was plug it in and wait. 

“How close?” Oliver’s voice broke her concentration and she looked up to see him, his finger was pressed to his ear and his eyes were watching outside the door in case any of the guards got back and they had to make a hasty exit. 

Felicity breathed a sigh of relief when the computer screen flashed to life and quickly typed in the command to copy everything on the hard drive. They’d have time to go through the files when they got back to the base.

Oliver’s mouth tightened and Felicity’s words came out in a rush of air. “I need at least 3 more minutes.” 

“Okay.” He reached in his pocket, pulling out another earpiece and tossed it towards her. Thankfully she didn’t drop it, or miss. “If anyone shows up, you drank too much and wanted to lie down.” She nodded slipping the earpiece in and she instantly heard Diggle breathing. Oliver stripped off his shirt, pulling the green leather over his head. Felicity was already pulling the collapsible bow out of her purse, grateful fashion seemed to favor a bag size that could fit things like this. She traded him the bow for his shirt, stuffing it in beside the flash grenade Oliver had asked her to pack. Because now she lived the kind of life where she packed a flash grenade “just in case.” 

“Be careful,” she told him as he went to the window. The office overlooked the garden and if he made a commotion there it would give her the time she needed. 

“Ollie – they’re coming your way, better get out of there.” Diggle’s voice was steady, but even she could hear the worry in it.

“We need a little more time; I’m going to lead them to the garden.” He pulled the hood down over his eyes, snapping the bow out, and dropped. Felicity’s heart hammered and her chest and she turned back to the computer, trying to stop her hands from shaking. She heard the shouts, the race of feet past the office. All she could do was wait as the percentage bar filled far too slowly for her liking. 

Just as it finally flashed green, she heard a pained grunt in her ear. Felicity yanked the flash drive out, dropping it in the bag and swinging it over her shoulder as she raced out. “It’s done.” She tried to keep her voice low as she slipped back into the crowd, sweeping her hair over her ear to hide the earpiece better.

Diggle’s voice broke through the sound of the music. “Oliver’s down.” Felicity gave a tight smile to a waiter, shaking her head ‘no’ at a glass of wine. “He went over the wall; I can get them off his tail if you can get to him.”

“On it.” She moved towards the front door and raced down the steps, trying not to think about the eyes that could be watching her. It was fine, she told herself, Oliver had distracted them. 

“Oliver, I’m on my way,” she whispered, hoping he heard her.

“Not going anywhere.” The cough in her ear sounded wet, but it was him. Felicity raced around the corner and saw him, a dark shape leaning against the wall. 

“Diggle, I see him, in the walkway behind the house!”

“On my way.” She heard the sound of a car starting.

She ran towards Oliver, heels loud on the pavement as she knelt at his side. He pushed off the wall , grimacing in pain and she saw where his hand was stained red, clutching his side. “One of them had a knife.” He sounded disgruntled, like it was a personal insult to him.

“Yeah, well, sometimes guns just don’t cut it, I guess,” she breathed out, pulling the shirt he’d given her back out. “No pun intended. Here, I think you’re supposed to put pressure on it or something.” 

Sweat beaded his forehead as he took the white dress shirt from her hand. She scooped the bow up from where he’d dropped it on the ground beside him, pressing the mechanism to collapse down again. She stuffed it back into the bag with the flash drive.

“I know you hate hospitals, especially given the whole illegally-fighting crime thing, but this looks really bad.” Already the blood was seeping through the shirt and Felicity helped press down on it. He hissed but held his hand over hers. 

“No hospitals. Dig, you can sew me up, right?” He started to get to his feet. Felicity slipped her other arm under his shoulders, helping him as much as he would let her. His hand was tight on hers where it was pressed over the wound in his side. 

“Always do.” Diggle responded and Felicity could hear the relief in his voice; she was feeling it too.

There was a rumble of an engine and a sleek black car pulled up beside them. Diggle was out of the door in a flash and together they pushed Oliver into the backseat, Oliver’s hand on her tight.

OOooOOooOO

“Got anything yet?”

Felicity did not jump. It was a near thing, but she didn’t. The excess amount of caffeine in her system didn’t help with that, though.

“What? Should you even be up?” She turned from the files she had been scanning to take in Oliver. Who wasn’t wearing a shirt.

Of course. 

Sweat pants were slung low on his hips and she could see the stark white bandage that Diggle had taped to his skin after digging a needle into it repeatedly to sew the gap closed. She’d stopped watching after the second stitch to keep herself from puking in the trash can. 

“I’ve had worse.” Oliver grinned, leaning over her shoulder to look at what she’d been able to get so far – and holy crap, yeah, no shirt and a body that Greek gods would have been jealous of, minus the scars. 

“Yeah, okay. Um…” Felicity hit a few keys and brought up the bank information on one of the screens she was working from “So our Mr. Newman of course has a few bank accounts spread across Sweden, where he’s been splitting the money he embezzles. The passwords weren’t hard to figure out, and I’ve transferred two of them so far to the Hood account you have set up.” She turned in her chair, valiantly keeping her eyes on Oliver’s face. “But the other requires voice identification so I am running a program to put together the phrase from recordings of his press interviews and phone calls.” 

Oliver’s smile was proud. “Good. You did good. Tomorrow I’ll pay him a visit, and you and Dig can transfer the money to the families Newman hurt.” 

He moved away and Felicity should have let him. She couldn’t though.“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” She got up to follow him. “Oliver, you were stabbed; no one will blame you for taking a day or two off.” He stopped suddenly and turned. Felicity would have run into him if he hadn’t grabbed her arm; she started to babble, “I’m sure Diggle wouldn’t mind putting on the uniform and doing the whole vigilante-posturing with the bonus speech.” Oh god, she couldn’t stop. “Especially given the fact that he wasn’t stabbed today. You don’t have to do everything; you can actually take a day off and recover. There are people who care about you, we care about you.”

Oliver studied her closely and his eyes widened in sudden realization. Felicity didn’t back down even though her nerves were coming back full force. She really hoped she hadn’t crossed some kind of invisible line with him. Various acts of lawbreaking had built a kind of closeness she didn’t want to lose, but that also meant she didn’t want anything to happen to Oliver because he wouldn’t accept any help. 

He breathed out and he let go of her arm, gently pushing her away. “I know.” He looked past her to where Diggle was leaning against the table, arms folded as he watched them expectantly. “Okay, if you’re up to it, Dig?”

“I am.”

Oliver turned back to Felicity “Then I’ll stay here and help you with the transfer.” There was a speculative look in his eyes that Felicity didn’t even want to think about. 

“Good. That’s good. Thank you.” Felicity smiled nervously. It felt like as much of a victory as she could get with him.

OOooOOooOO

“So bad guys threatened and victims compensated; it was a good day.” Felicity nudged him and Oliver looked up from where he had seemed to be brooding. Diggle had just reported that he was going to swing by his apartment then be by later after successfully posing as the Hood to deliver the “you failed this city” speech Oliver had perfected. Sometimes, Felicity had to remind herself that they all had homes outside of Oliver’s vigilante base. They all spent more time there then at either of their homes, if it wasn’t case-related, Oliver and Diggle were training and Felicity would be working on The Hood systems.

“Yeah, it was,” Oliver admitted and Felicity didn’t miss the surprise in his eyes as she reached for her coat. She tried to ignore it, the way he was watching her like he was seeing her for the first time. The last thing she wanted to do was read too much into it and then make things awkward. She’d done a pretty good job at keeping things from being awkward between them because she couldn’t help how he made her feel. 

“So, call me if you need me.” Her hands felt clumsy as she grabbed her bag, the one that carried her laptop and didn’t match her shoes. She had changed out of the slinky blue dress she would never be able to afford on her Queen Consolidated salary and into her usual button-down blouse and slacks. The dress and shoes were back in one of the lockers where she usually kept a change of clothes in case of all nighters. She snagged her keys from where she’d tossed them when she’d gotten in that morning. She was going to ignore the fluttering of her heart and go home and get some sleep. 

“Actually…” Oliver was up and helping her slip her coat on, his hands warm as he smoothed the fabric down her arms. 

She wasn’t the only one that kept a change of clothes there, both him and Diggle had their own lockers and he’d changed into jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, dark just in case the bandage broke and he bled through it. Which she had learned was an actual issue he had had. “If you don’t mind some company, my sister told me about this Thai place she swears is the best thing to happen to Starling City since the new theater in the mall. We could get something to eat.” 

She froze, keys held loosely in her hand, wondering if he meant what she thought she meant or if she was just hoping so much that she was reading into it something that wasn’t there. 

He looked nervous and seeing that gave Felicity the push she needed to hope this was what she thought it was. 

“Okay, yeah that would be great.” She couldn’t stop the smile that broke across her face, his hand a firm pressure on her back as they walked towards the door.


End file.
